BLOGATHON-GUN OWNERSHIP & RELATED PROBLEMS

 

Gun owners usually state the reasons as self defense, target shooting or hunting but, owning a gun can bring about many terrifying consequences. To whomever I ask  if they met someone been harmed by firearms, usually they state that they met. This means each of us have the possibility of being a victim. In order to be prevented from these problematic consequences, some precautions must be taken. I won't claim that firearms should totally be banned. Surely, guns are needed for military, police and some security stuff. But I think, gun legislations should be very restrictive. The only limit for taking a gun license mustn't be the age.

So as to provide a strong view, the term gun control has to be understood exactly. Can it be physical control of guns? Or maybe never missing the aim? None of them actually. The term 'gun control' refers to the all efforts to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and use of guns by private citizens. The gun control issue is a highly contentious one.  Many issues can be discussed under the title gun control. The most common arguments can be ordered as domestic violence, self defense, civil rights, civil duty, armed forces' reserves and resisting tyranny. But instead of arguing each of these points , I prefer to look some facts and data.  

As it is usually thought, gun violence does not only mean a homicide. It may be broadly defined as a category of violence and crime committed with the use of a firearm. It encompasses all homicides, suicides, unintentional injury and deaths caused by firearms.  A big majority of authors agree with the idea that increased gun ownership rates also increase the crime rates.  In order to make a clear view, lets observe the relation between gun law reforms and the violence rates. Texas is a good example. In the early 1990s, Texas's crime rate was 40 percent above the national average. Since then, crime rate dropped 50 percent faster than for the nation. All this happened after passage of a concealed-carry law in 1994. A similar decrease in Florida can be seen on the figure above. Also the decrease of firearm death rates has been observed in Australia after law reforms.

The second crucial point is suicides. Many research shows an association between gun ownership and suicide rates. For example, individuals owning a gun are close to five times more likely to commit suicide than those who do not own. In the United States, firearms remain the most common method of suicide, accounting for 62.1% of all suicides. A graph showing that the drop of suicides after gun law reforms in Austria is shown above. 

As you may already know in 2011 Turkey has tried to change its gun legislation and if the legislations had been approved, ones who are over 21, could own up to 5 guns. How logical is it right? Also, I don't think Turkey's policies about illegal gun trading are sufficient and the age limit for handling a gun must be between 24-27. Lastly, I yokels has to be mentioned about. Yokel briefly can be defined as the person who uses guns to celebrate a moment such as a wedding ceremony or a soccer victory. Too many citizens have been injured or killed in Turkey by them for years.  If we couldn't change these laws they will continue threatening our life.
Consequently, all of the problematic issues as suicides, homicides, yokel terror and the crime including any type of a firearm could only be intercepted provided that we have harsh gun control legislations. A composure society can only be created by leaving all commercial profits which forms the main reason of avoiding these type of laws.
Have any of your family members or your friends been injured or killed by firearms?



Do you agree with the idea that guns are needed for self defense?


Handguns are the cause of most of our gun-related problems. Banning them will greatly reduce the number of people dying each year. Do you agree?


Turkey has been named as ''contraband gun heaven'' for years. Just in 2010, thousands of contraband guns have been acquired which has more than 800 foreign sources. Do you think Turkey's gun policies are enough to stop illegal gun trading?


Homicide rates can be decreased by restrictive gun ownership legislations. Do you agree?



Suicide rates can be decreased by restrictive gun ownership legislations. Do you agree?



Accidental/Unconventional death rates can be decreased by restrictive gun ownership legislations. Do you agree?

REFERENCES

Lambert, M., T. & Silva, P., S. (1998). An Update On The   Impact Of Gun Control Legislation On Suicide.   Psychiatric Quarterly, Vol. 69, 127-134.

 Lott, J., R. (2001). Guns, Crime, And Safety. Journal of Law   and Economics, vol. XLIV,605-614.

Mialon, H., M. & Wiseman, T. (2005). The impact of gun   laws: A model of crime and   self-defense. Economic   Letters, vol. 88, 170-175.


My friends that I commented their blogs=
Steve Neufield http://sfltdu.blogspot.com/2012/05/abuse-misuse-and-no-usewhere-are-we.html
Beril Bulur http://blogbrgd.blogspot.com/2012/05/rives-3-minute-story-of-mixed-emoticons.html
Çağdaş Ekmekçi http://e186442.blogspot.com/
Bülent Yüksel http://e180301.blogspot.com/2012/05/although-most-of-instructers-think-that.html#comment
form
Meryem http://merympolat.blogspot.com/2012/05/potential-problem-of-internet-filter.html
Carla http://ccab89.blogspot.com/2012/05/blogathon-young-juvenile-tried-as.html

Does the current education system kill the creativity of the students?

To answer this question, first we have to determine the meant 'creativity' term. It could be discussed in two main titles including the social creativity and the occupational creativity. 

Also, we have to think 'schools' and 'educational system' as different objects while we deal with this question. As an example, schools always contribute to the social skills of the students but, a harsh and over-loaded  educational system could cause a contrary  effect.

Our campus has got only 1500 students averagely. As a result, we don't have hundreds of branches of social activities as it was in the other universities. Still, one can develop his/her social skills by attending to the societies or by taking part in the various social events. Even though I don't agree with the idea that schools kills social creativity, I think an over-loaded system can. In addition, I want to share some of my observations about this subject. Since EFL 126 is my first lesson out of my department, I have realized some serious differences between social sciences and engineering departments. In each lesson we take in our deparment, first we take the theories & laws and then the whole remaining part is to calculate, calculate and calculate... But in social sciences one can have dialogues apart from taking directly the knowledge. Moreover, in social sciences one can and discuss topics apart from directly accept them. I think these lack of dialogues and discussions explains why most of the workaholics are engineers facing many problems in their social life.

The second question that I want to argue is ''How does the educational system affect student's occupational creativity?'' There are two main group of lessons that a student could take. The first one is the must courses forming the fundamental knowledge of the job. The second group consists of electives which are dependent to the student's own determination. No matter what his/her department is, one could do art works, or maybe could learn another language. This is all up to his/her. Since these options are available, I think the present educational system directly contribute to our occupational creativity. Steve Jobs, the legend CEO of the Apple, has stated that,  if he had not attend to the calligraphy course as an absconder, the new font design used in Mac's could never been composed. 

To summarize by computer, or to summarize by human...that is the question.

To summarize by computer, or to summarize by human...that is the question.

It is a new trend to use computers to summarize articles. It may sounds good at first sight since it provides with the users much more time and energy. But It is an important question that whether is it ethical or not. Also, is it really summarizing and does it give the same meaning that author aim to ? For a scientific point of view, can we accept these softwares as summarizing tools? I think we can not. Because, these softwares does not summarize articles; they are just finding the common words and giving the sentences including these common words mostly. What if does the writer give the main idea in a sentence only once in which there is not any common word in it? For this case the answer is clear; the main idea could not be reached by using any software. So, what could be done for both a good and a rapid study? Instead of using summarizing tools, reading both abstract and conclusion parts pricisely and also searching for the keywords to reach to the information that we were looking for, could be much more beneficial. This methods does not only save your time, but also forms a more precise and regular study.   

I choose this topic because gun ownership is a serious problem especially for our society. I think doing this survey will not only contribute my writing skills, but also develop our knowledge about the risks aiming society.
I have found several papers about my subject. They include useful statistics and data that I could support my point of view. I have also found some news and graphs about my subject. In my literature review part, I am planning to use all of them. There is only one problem that I could mention about. There is not enough study about Turkey and due to this, I could expand my topic as a more general view including whole world maybe.